Newsletters
2018 February
In the recesses of our hearts we all long for deeper conversion and freedom from slavery to sin, which hinders us from fulfilling the purpose for which we were created: to receive God’s infinite love and to show forth His love to others. On the morning of this past Christmas Eve, which fell on a Sunday, I celebrated two Masses at the parish assigned to me. Although I had heard confessions the previous afternoon at the scheduled time, one parishioner asked before the second Mass if I were going to hear confessions that day. I responded that I would gladly hear his confession after the Mass. During the Mass the thought occurred to me that other people might also want the Sacrament of Reconciliation before the Christmas liturgies; so, near the end of Mass, I made an announcement about my…
2017 November
In several passages of the Holy Rule, St. Benedict expresses a longing for ideals in the past which were not fulfilled in his day. Regarding the Divine Office, he states, “We read, after all, that our holy Fathers, energetic as they were, did all this [praying the full psalter] in a single day. Let us hope that we, lukewarm as we are, can achieve it in a whole week” (RB 18:25). In regulating the drinking of wine, St. Benedict asserts, “We read that monks should not drink wine at all, but since the monks of our day cannot be convinced of this, let us at least agree to drink moderately, and not to the point of excess” (40:6). Writing about manual labor, St. Benedict insists that his monks…
2017 August
Peace is a gift and a virtue that we naturally seek. In the deepest recesses of our hearts, we desire peace within ourselves, peace with other people, and peace among the nations of the world. At Vespers each evening we monks pray for peace in the world and for an end of violence and terrorism, far from the goal though our planet may be. The 1981 edition of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary offers the following definitions of peace: (1) “a state of tranquility or quiet,” (2) “freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts and emotions,” (3) “harmony in personal relations,” or (4) “mutual concord…
2017 May
Saint Paul urges us boldly, “”If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:1-3). Yes, in baptism (and every time we receive the Holy Eucharist) we have died to sin and to self-seeking, and we have risen to new life in Christ and with Christ. Of course, we are still dragged down by desires that come from our “old selves,” but we must persistently “die” to those parts of us so that our whole being may more and more become a yearning for God and our will a joyful surrender…
2017 February
The Advent and Christmas seasons, together lasting some six weeks, have passed by rather quickly. The once beautiful poinsettias have mostly wilted and been removed. The trees and decorations have been taken down. As we grow older, we may experience the sameness of it all: another Advent of preparation (perhaps with some genuine hopeful expectation), another Christmas of festive celebrations, another transition back to Ordinary Time, with a sense that Lent will arrive soon. In our monastic community we have had more or less the same schedule, the same arrangement of liturgies, and the same liturgical music for a number of years; so there has been a sense of strong continuity for the Advent and Christmas celebrations. To have this dependable regularity from year to year…
2016 November
The collect (opening prayer) for Mass for the 28th Week of Ordinary Time reads, “May Your grace, O Lord, we pray, at all times go before us and follow after and make us always determined to carry out good works.” (The words at all times and always are especially important!) It is easy to ignore such prayers at Mass; they pass by quickly and are not always pronounced distinctly by the celebrant. Furthermore, we ourselves are often not focused enough for the prayers to penetrate our minds. These prayers, however, have profound lessons for us; in fact, they are meant to teach us to live as we pray. In any case, of course, God’s grace is always before us and after..
2016 August
More and more, I find myself dreading certain deadlines. Perhaps my dislike is connected with aging and not wishing to feel overwhelmed (as I often do), with wanting to work at my own pace, and with worry that focus on one task leads me to neglect other important tasks. Surely, there is also an element of rebelliousness in all this; a part of me simply wants to do what I feel like doing rather than to respond to external demands (and ultimately what God is asking of me). However you or I may feel, deadlines are a necessary part of life on earth. Notices for parish bulletins and newspapers must…
2016 May
In our very individualistic culture, it may be difficult for us to recognize our essential connection with other people. Benedictine monks and Oblates affiliated with the monks follow a Rule that is for cenobites, that is, monks who live in community. Mutual interaction in community, therefore, is a very important value for us. In his chapter on the different kinds of monks, St. Benedict says of the hermits that they have been “trained to fight against the devil” with “the help and guidance of many” (1:4). The monastery in which they once lived could be described as a “battle line in the ranks of their brothers” (1:5). Although in these verses St. Benedict is describing the eremetical, or hermit, life, he is also saying much about the cenobitic…
2016 February
Life is full of humor, though we may not always perceive it. I was especially aware of the mysterious and gifted nature of daily life on the day when I began this essay. In the morning while I was searching for a lost page from a reprint desired by an Oblate, I came upon a folder with information about our Oblate-novice survey from the fall of 2014. That folder had been “lost” (really just misplaced by me in a location where I would be unlikely to look for it) for about a year, and upon finding it I felt like telling the whole world, “I have found my lost folder!” (cf. Luke 15:6, 9, 24). I laughed inwardly over the unexpected nature of the discovery. I had not found what I wanted to find, but I found something…
2015 November
Much of the world has become familiar with Pope Francis’ (and the Church’s) concern for the environment as well as for the plight of the world’s poor, both of which are treated at length in the recent encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (LS). In addressing the problem of “global environmental deterioration,”* the Holy Father, as one might expect, often refers to St. Francis of Assisi, who had a deep appreciation for nature and its relationship with mankind and who is often considered the patron saint of ecology. However, in a similar way, St. Benedict can be considered…
2015 August
At our monthly meetings in Latrobe, we have been studying the Rule according to the commentary by Dom Paul Delatte, O.S.B. We recently have been discussing Chapters 2 and 3, which deal with the authority of the abbot, his need to take counsel, the responsibility of the monks to obey, and their duty to offer advice when appropriate. On July 13 the Church celebrated the memorial of St. Henry, who as Emperor Henry II (1014-1024) used his authority in a remarkable way to promote the welfare of the Church instead of his own selfish interests. The co-patron of Oblates, he established monasteries and dioceses and cooperated with the Pope in encouraging reforms. Also, on July 13 our Diocese of Greensburg…
2015 May
The fact that St. Benedict writes about having joy during Lent is a fascinating phenomenon among many monks and Oblates. Back in 1993 our Fr. Kurt Belsole wrote a dissertation entitled Joy in Lent: Gaudium in Chapter 49 of the Regula Benedicti: The Monastic and Liturgical Contexts. That sounds like a very technical study, but I am convinced that many of its ideas are applicable to ordinary people and are relevant to the Christian disciplines that we undertake during Lent, Easter, and the whole of the year. Besides, in 1995 there was published by St. Vincent Archabbey a 106-page, double-spaced summary of Fr. Kurt’s dissertation which makes the key themes much more palatable to the ordinary reader. (It is out of print, but the Oblate Library has a copy.) In that book Fr. Kurt points that St. Benedict “makes the Lenten observance a model for all of monastic life” (p. 15) and that the term omni tempore…